I'm probably gonna get thumbed down for this, but that isn't completely accurate.
Without piracy, people need more money in order to buy the games they want. This then motivates them to do things like get a job, or a second job, or a better job. If they do that, it means they are contributing to society, helping it.
But with piracy, they don't feel motivated to get a job because they figure "oh, I can just pirate it, I don't need the money."

Let's be factual...
A person gets $1200 a month
A person is taxed on that
A person then goes onto to spend anywhere from 25-75% of that on the cost of living
A person would now like to seek some entertainment
A person has decided to buy a game
A person does not want to be stung in the arse by $60 price tag
A person pirates a game.

Now we get to the good part.

Option A:
A person tries before they buy and enjoys it and buys it. + $60 to the industry, - $60 to the customer.

Option B:
A person tries before they buy and hates it so they do not buy it. - $60 to the industry, + $60 to the customer.

Option C:
A person tries before they buy it and they like but they do not buy it. - $0 to the industry because this person is a cunt and would not by it anyway BUT this person is not as much of a cunt as some who spends their time drink driving, mugging people or raping people.

TL/DR:

Piracy maybe a crime (Debatable) but it isn't nearly as bad as other crimes yet it gets 100 X more attention due to the fact some **** dick CEO thinks he entitled to a couple of more hundred thousand dollars to go with his multi million dollar triple A game.

It doesnt work like that, if the person actually wants to buy the game/music whatever, and just pirates it and stays at that THEN money is lost, if the man has little money to spare (enough to buy the thing, but has to look out for family or something, buy some new clothes etc) there wont be any money loss, but, if you have the money to spare and nothing else to spend it on, and you really CAN spend it on that, money is lost and you are an ass.

A person has money
A person wants a game
A person has bills to pay
A person pirates the game
---$0 loss not 60$loss
You can not loss money on a product that is still available on shelves to buy unless the product is stolen.

If the game is good the person will end up buying it anyway. wether or not they have a pirated copy.

The flawed logic behind ur theory is that they loose money cuase a person pirated. they dont loose money on something that would prolly never had been bought.
The only way there is a profit loss is if the game is stolen from the store shelves.

We all know that most pirated games you would not end up buying anyway. The ones you like you end up picking up a physical copy .
The real loss of money is in the used game industry. Just because you pay for something does not mean the provider of entertainment gets paid their far share. Every used game or console sold is money out of developers hands.

You dont seem to understand they do loss money though.
Lets say someone buys 1 new game $60 profit
They sell it back to gamestop for store credit.
Someone comes in and buys the used copy for $55
Now that is $60 the developers just lost. so total profit = 0
or for short

dev = $0(pirated copy) +-60(if person ends up buying a new or used copy)
game store= $0(pirated copy) +55(if the person buys a used copy)

this is how it really works in general terms of profit/loss give or take a few details.
If money is made off a game transaction outside of a new game purchase, developers dont make ****. Means the people that create the games you play dont see a dime of that profit
Why do you think devs hover towards dlc through psn/xbla . They make more money off those micro transactions than any used game transaction.

I'm probably really rare in this respect, but i really don't like pirating things. I only pirate if i've already bought it in the past, or it's such a goddamn old thing there's no way i'd be able to find it otherwise. Or some such idea.

Then again, it won't be $60 loss because if it'd be $60 loss they would sell their games to end up break-even. They'd probably lose $10 or something like that if you choose to pirate a game but they'd make $40 profit if you decide to buy it. And if your main goal of making a video game is to make money and not entertain people you're not an artist IMO but an entrepreneur. And any good entrepreneur can make a company a good profit. And an artist shouldn't complain (as long as he's able to produce more games) because he has fulfilled his goal, entertain people.

First of all, i don't have a credit card, i'm 15, and i have the worst internet ever, so why pay and download when i can just download, i would buy a game just to save the time i would take downloading it

Most people argue piracy from the US perspective. Most pirates arent even in the US.

Sure, in the US the people might be cheap bastards, I dont argue that. In other countries, its a completely different issue. The top five piracy countries according to [url deleted] are russia, china, italy, brazil and india. Now, 4 of those 5 are countries where Dollar currancy convertion turns the game into very expensive. If every game is above 300 dollars, would you pay for it? most likely you cant. And thats why piracy is predominant in those countries. You just cant afford the game. You cant just shell out that kind of money for every game you want to play. (the games are not 300 dollars, but to the people in those countries is the equivalent to what 300 dollars would buy on the US). Italians are most likely cheap bastards though.

For those who need a little back tory on the guy in the picture, I'll give you it. He had pirated over 2 thousand (or at least that;s the number I found when I had first heard of him) movies multiple times over, keeping separate copies. He would than send these pirated videos, for free, to military units over seas, so they could enjoy them without the worry of extreme prices of shipping

How about that billion dollar bail out on those big ass financial entities that caused the biggest financial disaster in U.S. history?

How about passing that bill at the turn of the century that allowed different financial corporations to merge and become to big to fail as they are today?

How about the huge deficit and rising inflation

I'm sorry for taking what I can, but things are tight and if this was a golden age I'd pay for everything fair and square. But that's just the thing, the world ain't fair and square. When corporations, governments and entities don't play by the rules why should any of us?

More like pirate it as a demo, buy it if it's good. That's what I did to Skyrim, Bioshock, GTA4 etc.. I regret not doing it for Fracry 3 though, that piece of **** console port gives me so much negative acceleration that it's unplayable.

Finally someone who shares my point of view. The sickly rich people are important because they give the nations a lot of work places. Which in turn pays for roads and schools and everything else the state does. Though I am not saying we should worship them or anything, but they do help for economic growth and in turn social growth if the people earn money.

You people have literally no idea how the world works... what about the musicians who are just starting out? You think they're making millions of dollars right from the start? Unless you're in the top 0.1 percent of recording artists in terms of popularity, music is nowhere near as lucrative as it was in the 1990's. Sorry if I sound a little blunt, but to minimize the impact of pirating like this is dangerous. The market is suffering because of it, and you wonder why there's so little "good" or compelling music out there in the market? It's because the real artists are afraid to take chances now.

You're so ******* wrong, bud. Artists make almost no money from their record sales, almost all (like 95%+) of the record (well, CDs and digitial now) goes straight to the producers who don't actually do anything except provide a recording room and MAYBE a little publicity. MANY new artists actually encourage people to steal their music offline or buy it directly from them via pay-pal because the more people who get to hear thier music, the more fans they have, and the more money they make on concerts. Concerts are the ONLY place small artists actually make money. You're a ******* moron if you think otherwise.

Record industries get to keep most of the proceeds of contracted artists. The only ways they can generate a good revenue is if they go on concerts and you buy their memorabilia or if they are indie artists and you support them like you should and buy their ****.

perhaps the most ignorant statement on here. artists make money from concerts. you want to support a band. go see them live. an experience people can never pirate.records sales goes to the record companies and bands make very little that way e.g. TLC

It gives the consumers more power. The power to directly choose "Do I want to SUPPORT this game/movie firm or not". It's no longer about "Do I WANT the product", it's about "Do I want to SUPPORT the producer"

Look up one of the hundreds of reviews? Ask people about it? Play a demo if there is one?

Most stores let you return games within a week anyway and most online retailers are pretty cheap. What you're doing is just trying to justify piracy, which is just stupid. It's wrong, inarguably. Do it if you want, don't make ******** excuses though.